It's the Bribery, Stupid

What about that report that shows no weapons of mass destruction (search) in Iraq? Well, what about the next line in the report that says Saddam was bribing the United Nations with billions of dollars: the Oil-for-Food (search) voucher scam? What about it?

I think the slogan for this phase of the campaign is: It's the bribery, stupid.

As you know, I've never thought much of John Kerry's insistence that diplomacy was even possible with our so-called friends, the Europeans.

Now we know for fact — as the Duelfer (search) report shows — that those Europeans whom Kerry was counting on to see the wisdom of our diplomacy, were being paid off by Saddam. He had them in the bag.

France and China and Russia were never going to give the United States a go ahead to hold Saddam to account because they were being bribed by Saddam.

Kerry says of course Saddam wanted sanctions lifted, but we wouldn't allow it. Sure, we have a veto in the Security Council. But the others were maneuvering to lift sanctions and how long could the U.S. have held out against the world? We can barely do it now.

If Saddam got the sanctions lifted and he was able to play again with no one watching, he was going to get WMD again — even nukes — so says Duelfer.

This is huge: Saddam was buying off the world to thwart the United States.

Is this getting any play in Europe? No. The papers there are saying, well Americans are trying to divert attention from the conclusion that there was no WMD, by saying that some baddies at the U.N. were taking some money. Billions of dollars — billions! — in bribes of members of the Security Council.

It was corruption of the first order and it explains why — to this day — the U.S. has had no help from our so-called friends. Those greedy, sticky fingered, so-called friends.

It's the bribery, stupid. Now let's see if Bush can say that Friday night. He'd better.